Science is Your God

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Because I am a total night owl I am online quite a bit. I read blogs, news, Pinterest, Facebook, listen to podcasts, watch video and lectures, etc. Because of my family's sincere love for all things science, I tend to watch lectures and things, often lectures by absolutely brilliant people. Then I get onto a tangent and go crazy reading and listening to these brilliant people. lol One of the more recent of these is Richard Feynman. I've read pages and pages of what he has written! 

The other night I was watching a two hour video with Lawrence Krauss debating an apologist on the topic "Is Science Killing God?  Great way to spend a couple of hours while doing other things, but it brought up some questions for me. Mainly meta-questions.

Read This!

Mainly questions such as these:  Are the devout believers holding on so hard and fast because they can see that the light is growing and is just outside of the door? Do they have the instinct that their belief systems are losing their power, light, meaning with the advent of more and more reason and logic in the good people of the world? Is it possible that the strong, Evangelical effort to take over the halls of power in my beloved America are doing so out of a fear of the impending, undeniable strength of the secular world? Are they playing these cards because they know that their hand is weak and that their only move is to bluff? Are they responding to a deep-seated fear? Are they acting more and more fundamentally because they feel backed into a corner as more and more of our scientific understanding explains things?

In a way, I feel tremendous compassion for the good believing people of the world who are, hopefully, living in the final generations of religiosity on this planet, who are seeing their long-held beliefs crumble before reason and logic. I remember how difficult it is to come out into the light. I remember fighting it. To me, much of their fight and loud voices remind me of someone backed into a corner, willing to come out fighting. The reasonable points of view are too compelling. Good and wise people are out there speaking their words into our eyes, ears, and hearts, speaking openly and clearly so we can all hear them.

I know that most of the world is still very religious, superstitious.  But I see a wonderful growth of secularism. I hear voices finally free to laud logic loudly. 

I feel a tremendous uprising of Humanism, Secularism, Atheism!  Do you feel it? Is it my own small portion of the world only?  I sincerely hope not.

They have a new claim for us! I have heard it; so have you. I had a person tell me that I actually do have faith...faith in science. The person went on to say that I worship science. She made the most remarkable claim:  that science is my god.

Where does such nonsense come from?

Man, how I would LOVE to be in the room with the folks as they write this stuff, with those religious leaders who stand at the pulpits and tell people these little gems. YES, they actually tell these things to the people who are looking to them for guidance. Better yet, I would love to see George Orwell respond to them! Yes, he would say, you are correct! And black is white! It is sad to think of people looking for guidance, for comfort, for truth, and getting this kind of confusion and fear...

One of the the problem for the good believers of the world is that religion has claimed, co-opted some very good and useful words:  blessing, faith, belief, etc... These words, though, are not owned by anyone!  The meaning of these co-opted words can be as beautiful and as varied as the people that use the words. Words are not tiny, hard, immovable things.

Do I Have Faith?

So, when a believer uses the word faith, they are referring to faith over all, including doubt. Likely there are people who are religious who use this word their own way. But when I use the word faith in this post, I am referring to the propensity to trust in that which has happened again and again.

• I absolutely have faith that my husband to fill the gas tank before bringing the car home.
• I have faith that John to tell the absolute truth.
• I have faith that my friends will love and support me.
• I have faith that the car to start when I turn the key.
• I have faith that the fan to keep me cool.
• I have faith that the tide to come in.
• I have faith that Elizabeth will absolutely come alive at the beach or near bodies of water.
• I have faith that the kookaburras will sing loudly at 4 am.

Not because I ignore facts and nature. Not because I fervently wish for these things but because the ones that I have faith in have acted in dependable ways upon which I can count again and again. My senses have seen, heard, felt, touched the evidence. Faith, but not in the slim, small, restrictive use of the word!

In this sense, YES, I have complete faith in the scientific method, in reason, in secularism.

But "faith" isn't really a word I'd use. Instead, I would say that I understand why secularism is real and true.

Yet another example of words that religion Does Not Own.

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Mind the Gap 
Atheists Believe in Nothing 
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